I have seen actual hardcore socialist-progressives say flat out that protecting the (to them) so-called free speech rights of Nazis is collaborating with them and makes you morally responsible for the death in Charlottesville.
Nothing I have read or been linked to on this board from anyone comes even close.
Did you actually read the thread you are quoting there? You are factually incorrect. No one in that thread called Stephan a Nazi. Multiple people, myself included, called him a nazi sympathizer.
C’mon, didn’t you know BPC set up this thread just to declare himself the final arbiter in who is allowed to be called a Nazi and who isn’t allowed to call people that?
The rule of the outraged in play here. He declares that he’s outraged that people are using these terms and sets himself up as the ‘high ground’ who alone is allowed to make that call.
Its just totally outrageous for all of us not to accept his authority here!
Jesus, what a kind and gentle judgment! If you’d read damn near anything I posted ever you might realize how fucking stupid this statement is, but I guess you’re not going to bother. Plus, being called a nazi sympathizer for claiming that we shouldn’t suspend a group’s basic human rights then make that group so broad as to be meaningless is totally better than being called a nazi.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you people? Have you all lost your goddamn minds, or am I the only one not in on the joke?
Lol. Welcome to my exasperation. I can only conclude these folks lack the intellectual capacity to distinguish between advocating for rights and advocating a specific point of view. Or, they do know the difference yet feel that there is a greater agenda served by dishonestly blurring the difference and personally attacking those who maintain that there is a difference.
The lunacy is actually worrisome for the future of the republic.
If you’re talking about Charlottesville, people were seriously injured, even killed. By people who would love to do it again. How is that not a threat?
Simple: there is disagreement on whether anyone is “[making] that group so broad as to be meaningless”. You obviously think so. Do you think anyone you’re arguing with thinks so?
Steophan was making excuses for actual Nazis, as in, people who proudly wore the Nazi symbols. He was trying to distance this neo-Nazi movement from Nazism. He was treating Nazis differently than BLM or Antifa. He was arguing freedom of speech in the face of actual violence.
Steophan is also an authoritarian, and makes up excuses to defend bad cops. He opposed standing up against bad cops. He thus is not the kind of person people want to give the benefit of the doubt.
And, as of my last post in the thread, he had not actually disavowed the actual core beliefs on Nazism, which seems oddly suspicious.
It makes perfect sense to call him a Nazi sympathizer. He can, of course, prove otherwise. It’s not a matter of an ever-widening definition. He very much seems to be doing the thing that would make him a Nazi sympathizer.
Though I’ll also point out that no one is advocating punching him for this, so I don’t see how it would be relevant even if you did disagree with the definition. According to your OP, it’s okay to have a too wide definition as long as you aren’t using it as an excuse to punch people.
Yep, that’s the definition of a Nazi, one who wears a particular set of symbols. You absolute fucking moron.
Obviously I’m going to defend the right of neo-Nazis, or anyone else with ridiculous, objectionable views (such as yourself) to hold and express those views because I’m not a fascist. I’m not going to threaten or use violence against people because of their views precisely because their views - which include doing those things - are wrong.
I don’t sympathise with neo-Nazi’s, fascists, white supremacists, and so on. I pity them. They are sad, pathetic people who have no understanding of how the world works, no clue why their own lives are so miserable, and are lashing out for someone to blame. Interestingly, they are the precise same reasons I pity you.
You think that’s not a valid description of white supremacists? It’s observably a valid description of BigT, as anyone who’s read more than 3 of his posts will know.
And as I pointed before that would be the case if it the issue that brought this to a head did not include black people or women being murdered by the supremacists and fascists.
Again the main issues I see here are that:
The Nazi’s, fascists, white supremacists crossed a line there that negated any free speech considerations.
Somehow the point is also missed that indeed most if not all of the people in this discussion do respect freedom of speech even for Nazis. But what is also ignored is that:
Others have indeed the freedom of expression to tell the Nazi’s, fascists and white supremacists that their views are deplorable.
It is indeed crucial for anyone that is just defending Nazi’s, fascists and white supremacists just for free speech reasons to also use their free speech to leave the point that indeed killing people to stop the free speech of people that denounce fascists and white supremacists should not be tolerated. And as me and many others have done in the past: it is indeed crucial for many moderates and conservatives that do believe in the American way to tell them, even at the risk of losing their friendship, that fascist or white supremacy ideas should not be considered.
That is because while we are discussing this one of my biggest fears of electing Trump is happening: many conservatives are giving too much oxygen to the Nazi’s, fascists and white supremacists.
And this is where you and the rest of your “of course they must be nazi sympathiser” despicable friends go off the rails. These can be and often are two separate discussions!
If I, or anyone, defend the the absolute right to free speech (and yes I mean ABSOLUTE) for everyone and even if I say that everyone includes such despicable groups as nazis, klan members, and even GIGObusters I am under NO OBLIGATION to express my own views on whether or not this speech is approriate. If you can’t separate someones views about whether or not free speech includes hate speech, from whether they endorse WHAT’S IN that speech then that’s your problem and not anyone else’s!
As one that also participated ijn other discussions, sure, I do think that some hyperbole has taken place, but my points stand.
That is fine, but the point I made was also related to a property that I have seen most conservatives here use: That of ignoring that we are here also defending the free speech of the people that were shot or run over by Nazi’s, fascists and white supremacists.
And If you really fear nazis and klan members then you should be encouraging them to speak up more and participate** more** in public discourse. Because right now actions to silence these groups give them a certain cache; than can say “if we weren’t right, those evil lefty libs wouldn’t be trying to silence us”
When you push their discourse out of the public you make it easy for them to misrepresent what they actually stand for. Some people can be fooled into believing that it’s about standing up for white people’s rights against some new form of reverse discrimination. Or that the Confederacy was about protecting the state’s rights to self government.
The beliefs of groups like the nazis can’t stand up to public scrutiny; they are exposed for the lies that they are. Groups like the Klan have been around for hundreds of years, we’ve even had several white supremacist Presidents before the current one, and yet they are still considered fringe groups.
